March 21 (Bloomberg) -- Mitt Romney is winning where it
matters: in collecting delegates and raising money.

With yesterday’s 12-percentage-point victory in Illinois
over chief rival Rick Santorum, which netted about 42 of the 54
delegates at stake, Romney is almost halfway to obtaining the
1,144 he needs to capture the Republican presidential
nomination. To finish the job, he must get 46 percent of the
remaining delegates. By contrast, Santorum, who trails Romney by
more than 2-1 in delegates, would have to win about 69 percent
of the remaining number.

The former Massachusetts governor’s campaign also reported
last night that it raised $12 million in February and entered
March with $7.3 million in cash on hand, according to Federal
Election Commission disclosure reports. Santorum reported
raising $9 million last month, ending it with $2.6 million in
the bank.

“Romney has the potential to seem virtually inevitable,”
said Whit Ayres, a Republican polling expert unaffiliated with a
campaign. “What he needs to do is put a string of wins
together.”

The Romney campaign is looking ahead to primary races in
Maryland and Wisconsin on April 3 and New York, Connecticut,
Delaware and Rhode Island on April 24. In some of those states,
his Massachusetts ties could boost his candidacy and continue
his momentum.

His victory in Illinois follows his success on March 18 in
Puerto Rico, a territory with 20 delegates that Santorum also
courted at the expense of taking time to campaign in Illinois.

‘We’ve Had Enough’

Speaking to supporters last night in Schaumburg, Illinois,
Romney focused on the general election, delivering what he
called a message to the Democrat he hopes to beat in November,
President Barack Obama: “Enough. We’ve had enough.”

In addition to his campaign’s financial edge, Restore Our
Future, the political action committee backing him, raised $6.4
million last month and had $10.5 million in the bank at the
start of March, according to its FEC report.

Restore Our Future, which can raise unlimited donations and
is dubbed a super-PAC, also reported spending $12.2 million last
month -- more than $400,000 a day -- to boost Romney’s
candidacy.

Bush Endorsement

Romney’s Illinois win helped him gain the endorsement of a
marquee political name: former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who
had remained neutral as his party’s primary contest moved
through Florida.

Bush, who many in the party encouraged to seek the
presidency, urged Republicans to unify behind Romney’s
candidacy. “Now is the time for Republicans to unite behind
Governor Romney and take our message of fiscal conservatism and
job creation to all voters this fall,” he said in a statement
today.

He joins his parents -- former President George H.W. Bush
and ex-first lady Barbara Bush -- and many top party leaders and
elected officials in backing the former Massachusetts governor.

In Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Santorum last night urged his
supporters to “saddle up like Reagan did in the cowboy
movies,” referring to President Ronald Reagan.

“We’re going to pick up a whole boatload of delegates and
close his gap and on to victory,” he said.

Stalling Romney

His campaign sees the potential to stall Romney’s momentum
in the next contest on March 24 in Louisiana, a state with a
large population of evangelical Christians and anti-tax Tea
Party voters who have resisted Romney in part because of his
past support for abortion rights and his role in passage of a
health-care overhaul in Massachusetts.

In the March 13 Mississippi and Alabama primaries, which
Santorum won, almost 8 in 10 voters said they were born-again
Christians or evangelicals, according to exit polls. That’s
about double the percentage in Illinois, where Santorum won that
group by 6 percentage points while losing the state.

“There’s no evidence to suggest that Romney’s winning the
hearts and minds of conservatives,” said Tony Perkins,
president of the Family Research Council, an advocacy group for
evangelical Christians. “He’s still struggling with that and
that’s going to continue.”

An Inconsistent Path

Romney’s path to win the nomination has been marked by a
series of victories -- in states such as New Hampshire, Florida,
Michigan and Ohio -- accompanied by defeats in such states as
South Carolina, Tennessee and Oklahoma.

“He’s not done as well as we had hoped,” Arizona Senator
John McCain, a Romney supporter and the 2008 Republican Party
presidential nominee, said in an interview yesterday on Fox
Business. “None of us do in campaigns.”

Still, there are signs Romney is expanding his support.
Surveys conducted of Illinois Republicans leaving polling places
showed Romney won Tea Party supporters by 8 percentage points, a
group that is typically loyal to Santorum. He also won more than
70 percent of voters who said it was most important to have a
candidate who could defeat Obama, according to polls done by the
Associated Press.

Santorum aides said they are preparing for a difficult
April, during which he could win his home state of Pennsylvania
while faltering in the northeast, followed by a more competitive
May, when voting moves back to the South to Arkansas and
Kentucky on May 22.

Looking to May

“We view May as a very favorable month for Rick
Santorum,” John Brabender, a senior strategist for the
campaign, told reporters yesterday. “There’s a fantastic
opportunity for some very large wins that go into Texas with
momentum.”

The former Pennsylvania senator enters that phase of the
campaign with a cash crunch. His campaign has less than half of
what Romney has in the bank, and the super-PAC supporting him --
the Red, White and Blue Fund -- reported yesterday that it
raised $2.9 million last month and had $364,582 in the bank.

Rather than attempt to surpass Romney in delegates,
Santorum’s campaign has adopted a strategy of preventing its
rival from reaching the 1,144 delegates and forcing a fight at
the party’s convention in August.

“It’s very difficult for any candidate to get to 1,144
when you have a four-candidate race,” John Yob, a Santorum
delegate strategist, said yesterday.

Pre-Illinois Delegate Counts

Before last night’s results, Romney had 522 delegates,
Santorum 253, former U.S. Speaker Newt Gingrich 135, and U.S.
Representative Ron Paul of Texas 50, according to the Associated
Press.

Santorum’s campaign questioned that count yesterday, saying
it didn’t allow for delegates awarded at county, district and
state conventions. At those meetings, delegates aren’t
distributed according to the results of the caucuses and
primaries.

Santorum’s ability to defeat Romney in primaries is
hampered by Gingrich’s continued presence in the race. Gingrich
finished fourth in the Illinois results. In another sign of his
fallen fortunes, his FEC reports released yesterday showed the
Gingrich campaign has more debt than cash.

The former Georgia congressman raised $2.62 million in
February and spent $2.8 million, according to his campaign. He
reported having $1.54 million in cash, and $1.55 million in
debts.

Gingrich Donations

The super-PAC backing Gingrich, Winning Our Future, spent
$5.8 million in support of his candidacy last month, helped by
$5 million from Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman Sheldon Adelson
and his wife, Miriam. The couple also gave $10 million to the
super-PAC in January. The Adelsons’ daughter, Shelley, gave
$500,000 in February. The super-PAC reported having $2.3 million
in cash at the beginning of this month.

Gingrich drew criticism when, instead of campaigning in
Illinois, he spent March 18 viewing the early-blooming cherry
blossoms in Washington with his wife, Callista, and security
detail in tow.

“If Gingrich had the conservative cause uppermost in his
thinking, he would strategically withdraw,” said Richard Land,
president of the Nashville, Tennessee-based Southern Baptist
Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “The fact
that he stays in tells me that it’s more about Gingrich than
anything else.”

The presence of Paul also prevents an anti-Romney vote from
coalescing around one candidate. Paul reported on March 16 that
he had raised $3.3 million in February and had $1.4 million in
the bank.